The wall bed, (or Murphy Bed, a 1900 patent), a well known piece of furniture, allows a double use of a certain area of a room. It usually has a very simple mechanism, which includes springs to balance the weight and diminish effort for stowing or deploying the bed. Some versions become a Combination Bed and Desk, adding a folding desktop that can be deployed when the bed is stowed in a vertical position. The desktop must be cleared to stow it, and then the bed can be deployed. The desktop normally uses part of the area that the bed was occupying.
A great number patents combine a bed and a desk in fixed positions or folding the bed to stow it, but, few designs exist that can stow a loaded desktop and deploy a bed in the same area.
Similar existing proposals are compared with our invention as follows: Patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,715 dated Jan. 31, 1978, proposes a Combination Bed and Desk which consists of a wall bed and a desk that moves down and up.
The mechanism used is complex, having chains, pinions, shafts, racks and it almost always needs a motor. When the desk lowers from the use position, a mechanism keeps the desktop leveled thus allowing objects to remain on it. Simultaneously, the bed that was stowed against the wall turns, deploying at a normal level. Strokes only permit a reduced height for objects left on the desktop.
The bed land the desk, the main components of the furniture, when in use, come in turn to occupy the same floor area. The height of the desktop and the bed are normal in their use positions. In comparison, our design has only two or three pairs of simple auxiliary parts, with remarkable cost and simplicity advantage.
In summary, the system is different, stowed positions and mechanical means used are different.
Patent DE 4318785, issued Feb. 9, 1995, proposes a Combination Bed and Desktop without an additional furniture body unit. The described mechanism guides bed and desktop, linking bed and desktop to some wall fixed elements. The weight of moving parts and mechanism lever action is handled by four wheels that roll on the floor. In final stowed position, the bed lies flat against the wall with one side next to the floor. This mechanism is more complex than ours: it has five pairs of parts (or six or more according to the criteria), and also requires adequate quality of the floor for the wheels rolling on it. If floor lacks the required quality, some work should be done to it, or additional rails must be installed. Moreover, its main links are much longer and loaded in flexion, so our design has greater rigidity and solid feel for the user. Our design has only two or three pairs of simple auxiliary parts, with a remarkable cost and simplicity advantage.
In summary, the '785 system is different, the stowed positions and the mechanical means used are different.